The present invention relates to microchip dental and surgical laser instruments which are portable, hand-held, cordless, rechargeable and compact. Known dental and surgical lasers are large and connected to hand-held instruments by power, coolant, and optical fiber cables. They are inefficient with a gas filled plasma tube, with wall plug efficiency below 0.01%, and require power consumption exceeding 2000 Watts.
Goldsmith et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,334,016 discloses an argon laser for curing dental materials in combination with a helium-neon laser. This system requires a separate housing with forced-air cooling, and a fiber optic cable to deliver the laser beam to a separate hand-held unit. The laser wavelength is not matched to the peak absorption wavelength of the composite to be cured.
Badoz et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,987, Topel in U.S. Pat. No. 5,548,604, and Cipolla in U.S. Pat. No. 5,616,141 all disclose dental laser units. However, they are all large stationary units connected to separate hand-held units by optic fiber and power cables. These are not cordless units. The wavelength of these lasers are not matched to the peak absorption wavelength of the material to be cured, so much energy is wasted.
Therefore, there remains a need to develop a compact, self-contained, efficient, cordless, rechargeable dental curing laser and surgical laser instrument which can be produced at low cost.